You are here:

Why Don’t More Doctors Prescribe Cannabis to Their Patients? | Leafly

To better understand why many doctors hesitate to embrace cannabis, let’s consider the factors that have plagued the pro-cannabis argument:

First, a lack of available scientific studies on many health outcomes leaves us with mostly anecdotal reports of its medicinal abilities. While these stories certainly have value in guiding scientific investigation, they’re ripe with bias and a spectrum of confounding factors, so they’re not sufficient on their own.

Next, when results suggest that cannabis is ineffective at treating a condition, or may have small benefits but substantial side effects, it’s hard to support using cannabis for that clinical condition.

Lastly, inconsistency in cannabis’ effects across published reports reduces confidence in the predictable and consistent therapeutic benefits of cannabis.

Let’s break these points down.

Why Are There Few Scientific Studies Into Cannabis’ Clinical Benefits?

The reason for the relative scarcity in clinical cannabis studies stems largely from its Schedule I classification by the Drug